Short-Term Memory Fail

I made a lot of promises about how I’d be using this Summer to plan out the story for the Fall season, and how it was going to be a really cool story that introduced a lot of new characters and fleshed out the world of Cats in the Kitchen.

This is not that story. And in reality I spent most of my Summer learning that I’m a discovery writer.

Actually that’s wrong. I spent most of my Summer working. Of the time that I spent on comics, most of that was on learning the “Seven-Act Structure” and brainstorming and trying to weave in subplots… Basically what I wound up with was a simplified Scott Pilgrim, with no love story. And an awesome Iron Chef style battle, but even that felt forced, and then the rest of the story felt forced around it.

So I scrapped it and went back to where I was in January. I’m telling a story again, these aren’t just a string of one-offs. I have a general idea of where I want the story to go, but I don’t know the ending yet. It was reading Superhero Girl (Great comic by fellow Canadian, Faith Erin Hicks. Go read now) that convinced me that this is okay, and doesn’t make me a hack.

Also! I’m loving the look of inking with a square digital pen. I’m not entirely certain it suits my story, and I may change back soon, but wow it looks neat. I wouldn’t have thought that the shape of a digital nib would make that much of a difference, But it’s made my lines more angular, sort of Invader Zim-like.